“My god, that horse is just something else. He gives me 1,000% every time, and I can’t ask for anything more of him,” said an emotional Caroline.
Caroline and the 12-year-old, who she owns with Lucy Matthews, Fiona Olivier, Marie Anne Richardson and Heather Royle, had just 2.7 penalties in hand going into the showjumping, and the clock was proving tight for some, but the Billy Mexico gelding produced a faultless round.
“I just trust him implicitly,” said Caroline. “I know he’s going to try and never want to touch a fence. He will give me everything. I just try to focus on getting a good canter, keeping the rhythm and not thinking about winning.
“Like in cross-country, you can ride him very quick and he likes it. The tighter the time, the better for me, because I know that he’s good with that.
“He loves the crowd so when everyone starts clapping, it’s great for him because he thinks: ‘Oh everyone’s here to watch me’, so it was great to come in after Emily [King] had jumped so well.”
Caroline and D. Day are now double five-star champions having topped Pau in 2024.
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“The little horse that was bred to be a happy hack has gone and won two five-stars. I never thought this horse was a five-star horse, so I take that back,” said Caroline.
“He’s just all heart. He’s not the most talented, but he gives you absolutely everything. And that’s more than you could ever want.”
Caroline said despite her success she still doubts herself – and she would tell her younger self to “keep going and be determined”.
“I still doubt myself every day. It’s quite nice to prove that Pau wasn’t a fluke,” she said.
“I’ve worked very, very hard – and taken a lot to keep believing, but we got there eventually.”
Emily King and 17-year-old Valmy Biats, owned by Emily and her father David, kept the pressure on Caroline and D. Day when they showjumped clear to finish second.
“He’s incredible. On paper he’s a little bit older but my goodness, he feels like he’s seven,” said Emily.
“The whole team; our vet Liz, physio Vicky, the trainers, every year they’re saying: ‘He feels better and better and younger and younger’. He’s like a Benjamin Button story; he’s getting younger and feeling better.”
Emily King and Valmy Biats finish second in the five-star Luhmühlen Horse Trials.
(Image credit: Peter Nixon)
Emily said it’s Valmy’s “grit” that makes him so special.
“He fights for you every day, and his heart’s incredible,” she said.
“He loves his job. He’s obviously a super athlete in his physique, but he gets up every morning and he wants to work. In those tough moments in each phase, he grits his teeth and gives you more.
“You never feel ‘This is getting a bit hard’, he just keeps fighting, it’s an honour to work with horses like that. Today he kept the rideability and had so much energy, he was on springs.”
Boyd Martin finishes third
Completing the podium was US rider Boyd Martin and Shanroe Cooley, owned by Dallas LLC. They completed on 38.1 at the 11-year-old’s first-five star, having posted a superb double clear with just 2.4 cross-country time-penalties yesterday.
“Obviously it’s huge effort to come all the way from America to Luhmühlen, I’m grateful to the owners and supporters and the coaches of Shanroe for giving it a whirl because it’s a massive project coming across the ocean.”
Boyd said he did not know what to expect of Shanroe at his first five-star.
“I’ve done one four-star long on him last year and he was pretty good, but then this year, he’s just been brilliant in all the lead-up events,” he said.
“Every time we’ve competed together we’ve started to click a little bit more, then to come to Luhmühlen and finish in the top three next to Caroline and Emily, he exceeded my expectations. I really didn’t know what to expect, whether he’d get through it or not, then to be on the podium, I’m very proud of the horse and thankful to the team around him.”
Boyd said competing in a five-star is “a bit like running a marathon”.
“There’s sort of part of you that just wants to finish, and then the other part is: ‘I want to try to win this thing’. There’s a huge difference in how you ride or how hard you push if you’re trying to be competitive,” he explained.
“I was sort of in two minds whether we should just try and get across the finish line, but then once he started off yesterday, I thought, ‘Oh, screw it. Let’s have a crack at it’.
“He really showed me that championship heart that he has. To dig deep all the way around, and then to come out today and jump a clear round, I’m just absolutely thrilled with him.”
Five-star Luhmühlen Horse Trials results: top five
Jonelle Price and David and Karie Thomson’s 14-year-old gelding Capitaine De Hus Z finished fourth, and two poles dropped Jonelle and the Grape Syndicate’s Grappa Nera down to eighth.
Hallie Coon and Kapriccio jumped clear for fifth. Britain’s Harry Horton posted a brilliant clear round, with two time-faults, to finish 10th with Ballinger Equine and the Ambition Syndicate’s Cooley With Ambition at their first five-star.
Since joining H&H in 2018, Becky has covered a broad range of equestrian news including welfare matters, veterinary studies, FEI Tribunal hearings and road safety campaigns. She has also interviewed top riders including Scott Brash, John Whitaker and Ian Stark, to name just a few. Becky’s reporting has taken her to Canada for Spruce Meadows and France for Pau five-star, as well as the Royal Highland and Blair Castle International Horse Trials closer to home. She was also a key part of the remote reporting team for the Tokyo Olympics and the Europeans.
